Terrific Rim...at Times.

Rating: 7/10 (5 August 2013)

"We always thought alien life would come from the stars, but it came from deep beneath the sea". In fact, director Guillermo del Toro brought new life to the monster movie genre with the epic and undeniably entertaining Pacific Rim right here on land.
Pacific Rim delivers just about what one might expect from seeing its trailers or even just hearing about it. Guillermo del Toro's vision is complex in its ambition and scale, but simple enough in its high-concept premise. When the Pacific Ocean receives an unwelcome portal between dimensions, alien life invites itself into our world and certainly doesn't wish to remain unnoticed as mass destruction of Earth's infrastructure ensues. In response, the Jaeger Project is born, creating monsters of our own to combat the deadly, in a sense, subterranean species. Del Toro immediately invites us into his multidimensional universe, with the cinema screen acting as the portal where for 131 minutes you are transported on a journey of majestic imagery.
The initial 30 minutes in this new universe, (a universe which is only further enhanced by the third dimension and IMAX experience) is unfortunately spent telling us what we probably already know. There are certain films where you wish you had known less going in as surprises are spoiled by your anticipation and natural assumptions. Pacific Rim differs in no way and in fact could have benefited from more constructive and ambiguous pre-released material as its opening half- hour is more or less an extended version of the trailers. As with most stories however, judgment should really be reserved until its middle and end have executed their purpose.
Pacific Rim is effortlessly enjoyable, tie-in toyable, with monsters and robots readily deployable into battle sequences so convincing and grand, that you look up to the screen as you would these monsters in real life and this makes Del Toro rightly employable.
While the action has you synchronised unbreakably with Del Toro's vision due to the prowess of the CGI, which just feels like I alone, you cannot help but wish for the camera to take a giant step backwards. Although obviously done intentionally, Del Toro leaves the camera awkwardly in between the action at times, and the result is perplexing. With films such as Jaws (1975) and Cloverfield (2008), the devastating creatures are purposefully obscure visually and shown infrequently to heighten the sense of danger and fear of the unknown. Meanwhile, with Jurassic Park (1993) and other similar creature features, we are monstrously engaged and aesthetically informed by being able to see the action and nonhuman characters clearly afar when necessary. Pacific Rim is uncomfortably framed in between this spectrum at times and this unfortunately lessens the visual value and experience of the film overall.
While the battle sequences are the most anticipated, decorated and appropriately stated highlights of Pacific Rim, they are only setpieces to the much bigger war. The primary point of interest away and even importantly within the action is the film's central theme of unification. Seeing the abandonment of international conflicts, petty feuds and meaningless separation between Earth's people holds a great deal of truth to it when faced with a common enemy. Del Toro maintains this theme consistently throughout the feature, with the giant Jaeger robots even requiring a coalition between two pilots emotionally and cerebrally to function capably.
While puny individual Earthlings are thrown in for purposes of making the film grounded and recognisable, it's really the robots and aliens you came to see. Nonetheless, Idris Elba and the brief yet excellent performance of child actress Mana Ashida stand out chiefly even when facing the immeasurable monsters at their doors.
Pacific Rim is quite literally a groundbreaking feat in cinematic excellence because Guillermo del Toro immerses his audience into his world, his galaxy, his universe with relative ease, and the goal to please, which he achieves. While it has its flaws and calculates its fair share of question marks for itself, Pacific Rim is difficult to deny as anything but entertainment. It's simple, it's smashing, its scale is felt with incredible zealous. It's Pacific Rim.